Global und intersektional. Prolegomena zu einer noch neueren Geschichte der Schweiz

This article critically examines some of the recent works in Swiss national history. It argues that many of these works suffer, albeit in different ways, from a too narrowly construed, Eurocentric perspective. Consequently, they fail to offer an understanding of how Switzerland both shaped and was shaped by processes of imperial globalization since the 1500s. The article goes on to argue for a ’post-patriotic’ conception of Swiss national history that seeks to uncover how Swiss global entanglements fed into various hierarchies between gender groups, social classes, races and religious communities. The article ends with a historical example from 16th century Basel and Geneva, where book printers published books on the Spanish conquests of the Americas. The example illustrates how the historical beginnings of a Swiss nation and the beginnings of imperial globalization in the 1500s were closely intertwined processes – and how the trajectories of Swiss history and the history of the world have remained intertwined ever since.